Transport Layer Security (TLS) Application

The technology trends positioning web apps to compete effectively with desktop apps is one that has engaged the better parts of the developer communities efforts. Google, definitely is at the forefront of the current innovation, with its Chrome browser, working out the speed requirements - SSL False Start (TLS Implementation), a client-side only change to reduce the overall SSL connection setup time.

Transport Layer Security (TLS), dubbed SSL False Start, has undergone a benchmark performance test by Google software engineer team, according to the Chromium blog. The result yielded significant reduction in overall SSL connection setup time, the latency to the SSL handshake was reduced by 30%.

The performance test was implemented in Chrome 9, with the results relatively stunning, even as more content providers embraces SSL for secure connection to the web.

Google compiled a list of all known https websites from its index, and the False Start test was carried out on all the listed websites. However, implementing SSL False Start was backward compatibility, there was no easy way to know whether it will work on all websites. The result of the tests were as follows: 94.6% succeeded, 5% timed-out, while 0.4% failed.

How the data would be interpreted by other browser vendors and the model effectively adopted into the mainstream of server-side security using SSL/TLS protocol remains to be seen.